Stanislaw Lem: The Futurological Congress

"Professor, I was looking at your notebook. Excuse me, but what is this?" I pointed to the page with the words "multischizol" and "selfthrong proliferox."

"Oh, that… Well you see, there's this plan, the Hinternalization Project, named after its author. Egbert Hinter-perhaps you've heard of him?-to compensate for the growing lack of external space by means of a psychem-induced augmentation of the internal space, that is the soul, whose dimensions are not subject to any physical limitations. You are undoubtedly aware that thanks to zooformalin one can temporarily become-or rather, feel oneself to be-a turtle, ant, ladybug, or even a jasmine blossom, with the help of a little botanil inflorescine-subjectively of course. It is also possible to undergo dissociation into two, three, four parts. When the number of personality splits reaches a two-place figure, you obtain a thronging effect. At which point we are no longer dealing with an ego, but a wego. A plurality of minds in a single body. And there are amplifiers to intensify the inner life and give it precedence over the objective, outside world. Yes, such are the times we live in, my boy! Omnis est Pillula! The pharmacopoeia has become our Book of Life, our almanac, encyclopedia, the alpha and omega of our existence, with not a coup or overthrow in sight, for we have insurrectal suppositories, mutinine and dissidone, and that Dr. Hopkins of yours does a whopping business with his sodomil and gomorrephine-you can personally visit death and destruction upon as many cities as you like. Promotion to God Almighty is also possible, for a dollar seventy-five."

"The latest art form is tingling," I remarked. "I've heard, or rather felt, Kitschekov's Scherzo, but can't say it had any esthetic effect on me. I laughed in all the wrong places."

"Yes, that's not for the likes of us, grandfather stiffs from another century, castaways in time." Trottelreiner grew pensive. But then he shrugged it off, cleared his throat, looked me in the eye and said:

"Tichy, the Futurological Congress is convening now-to consider the hencity of the human race. This is their 76th World Assembly. Today I sat in on the first organizational meeting-preliminaries to the preliminaries-and would like to share my impressions with you… "

"Strange," I said. "I've been reading the papers fairly carefully and haven't seen any mention of this congress."

"It's a secret congress. Surely you understand-among other things to be discussed are problems concerning masconation!"

"Problems? Is something going wrong?"

"Terribly wrong!" exclaimed the Professor. "It couldn't be worse!"

"Yesterday you were singing a somewhat different tune," I said.

"That's true. But look at my situation- only now am I becoming acquainted with the actual state of affairs. And what I heard today, ach, I tell you-but here, you can swallow it for yourself."

Out of his briefcase he pulled a thick bundle of candy cane up-to-the-minute reports, tied together with multicolored ribbons, and handed it to me across the desk.

"Before you tackle these, a few words of explanation are in order. Pharmacocracy is psychemocracy founded upon absolute lubricracy-that is the motto of our new age. The reign of hallucinogens goes hand in glove with political corruption, to put it more plainly. And it is to this that we owe our universal disarmament."

"So at last I'm to learn just how that came about!" I cried.

"It's quite simple, really. Bribery serves one of two ends: either to dispose of a defective or otherwise undesirable commodity, or else to acquire a commodity of which there is a shortage. Services may of course be included under the heading of commodity. For a manufacturer, the ideal situation obviously is to receive payment without giving anything in return. I suppose the actualysis was started by the scandals of the malculators and mendacitors. You must have heard of them."

"Yes, but what is actualysis?"

"The breaking down, the eroding of reality. When the first bombshell broke about the graft, embrozzlement and cover-ups, all the blame was put on the computers. Though in fact powerful syndicates and secret cartels were involved. At stake was the terraforming, the making habitable of the planets-a vital undertaking for an overcrowded world! Enormous fleets of rockets had to be built, the climates and atmospheres of Saturn and Uranus had to be changed. How much simpler, then, to do all this on paper only!"

"But surely that sort of thing would be quickly exposed," I protested.

"Not at all. Unforeseen difficulties arise, unanticipated obstacles, snags, and new expenditures are required, supplementary allocations, additional funding. The Uranus Project, for example-980 billion dollars poured into it, and no indication that so much as a single stone was touched."

"Supervisory commissions?"

"Supervisory commissions don't have astronauts on them, and without the necessary preparation and training you can't very well go investigating other planets. So representatives were sent, plenipotentiaries, envoys, and these in turn relied entirely on the materials given them-receipts, photographs, statistics-and yet documents may be falsified, forged, or, what is easiest of all, fabricated by mascons."

"Ah!"

"Precisely. It was in much the same way, I imagine, that the simulation of weaponry began. After all, the private firms that received government contracts were out to make a profit too. They took billions and did nothing. That is, they produced the laser cannons all right, the launchers, anti-anti-anti-antiballistic missiles with sixth-generation multiple warheads, flying tanks and boring torpedoes, but it was all troped."

"Come again?"

"Psychotroped, hallucinated. Why run nuclear tests if you have fungol gum?"

"What's that?"

"You chew it and see mushroom clouds. Anyway, the whole thing snowballed. What need is there to train soldiers? In case of mobilization give them boot-camp capsules. And what's the point of cultivating officers in expensive military academies-don't we have strategine, tacticol, maneuvrium, commanderil? 'Studying Clausewitz all day is rough, Become a general with just one puff.' Ever hear that saying?"

"Never."

"No, because these drugs are classified, or at least unavailable to the general public. It's no longer necessary to call out the national guard-all you have to do is sprinkle the right mascon over the troubled area and the populace will see paratrooper units landing, marines charging, tanks-a real tank now costs about a million dollars, while a hallucinated one amounts to less than one-hundredth of a cent per person, or centispecter per spectator. A destroyer costs a dime. Today you could fit the whole arsenal of the United States inside a single truck. Caissons, cadaverous, bombons-in solids, liquids, gases. I understand they even have an entire Martian invasion-it's a specially prepared scenario powder."

"Everything in mascons?"

"Just about! By degrees the real army became superfluous. Only a few planes are left-I think. And who needs them? The process went like a chain reaction, there was no way to stop it. And that, my lad, is the whole secret behind disarmament. But disarmament is only part of it. Have you seen the new cadillacs, dodges, chevrolets?"

"Of course. They're not bad."

The Professor gave me the flask.

"Here, go to the window and take a look at your pretty cars with this."

I leaned out over the window sill. Seen from the forty-first floor, the street was a ravine, and at the bottom of it ran a glittering river of automobiles, windshields and polished tops flashing in the sun. I lifted the open bottle to my nose, blinked, wiped the tears from my eyes, and beheld a most unusual sight. Holding their hands out chest-high and gripping the air like children pretending to be drivers, businessmen were trotting single file down the middle of the street. Now and then between the close columns and rows of these gallopers, who were furiously pumping their legs and leaning back from the waist up, as if reclining in deep seats, a solitary car would appear, puffing and chugging along. Then the vapor wore off, the picture gave a shudder, straightened out, and once again I was looking down on a gleaming procession of car tops, white, yellow, emerald, moving majestically across Manhattan.